our favorite hymn

From my sermon on Sept. 25, 2011 from Philippians 2:1-13

Music is powerful. Especially when it comes to expressing love and relationships, there is no better way to go than music. I ask you couples to remember “your song”…..the one that you fell in love to…it’s powerful.

In the Bible, we have God’s love song for us, and there are times when we are so overcome with God’s presence, that all we can do is sing. The Hebrew children are rescued out of bondage in Egypt, they cross the Red Sea on dry land, the pursuing army is drowned in the returning waters, and what do they do? They sing. In the 15th chapter of Exodus, we find some of the old Hebrew language, as Moses sings, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, horse and rider, he has thrown into the sea.” To grant equal time, Miriam later in the chapter sings the same verse.

In the book of Psalms, we have 150 songs that cover the gamut of emotions from praise of God like in Ps. 100
(sing) Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye, all ye lands,….
to lament like in Ps. 137 (sing) By the waters, the waters of Babylon…

In the New Testament, we have the opening words of John’s gospel, that are usually translated as, “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” When we read this text at the service of lessons and carols, I do another translation allowed by the Greek, “In the beginning was the Song, and the Song was with God, and the Song was God.” Isn’t it wonderful to consider all of creation as being sung into existence?

In the ministry of Jesus, we have in Mark 14:26 that after Jesus and his closest friends celebrated the Passover feast, “when they had sung the hymn,” they went out into the night. Jesus enters his passion of betrayal, denial, trial, crucifixion.

So what does this have to do with the passage from Philippians? You are not going to believe this, but the church was in conflict! They had….wait for it…discord. They were not in harmony. So what does Paul do? He gives them a moral lecture…No. He gives them a theological treatise….No. He gives them quotes from scripture…No. What he does is quote from their hymnal. Verses 6-11 are actually one of the earliest hymns from the Christian Church. In the midst of discord, Paul tries to get them to sing together by referencing their favorite hymn.

Watch my directions: (hand up) have this mind amongst yourselves that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped but (hand down) emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, humbling himself, being found in human likeness, he freely accepted death, even death on a cross. (hand up) Therefore God has highly exalted him placing his name above every name on earth or in heaven that at the name of Jesus (hand down) every knee should bow and every tongue confess that (hand up) that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.

Paul is acting like a choir director, giving them the tune, the beat of their favorite hymn. Music is powerful in bringing people together, in re-directing them from me-ism to serving others.

I want to tell you about our favorite hymn today. See if you can guess it. The author was born July 24, 1725, in London, England. He was the son of a shipmaster and went to sea at age 11. He was captured and put to work aboard a man-o-war. From there he espcaped onto a slave trader. He worked his way up to become the shipmaster of the slave trader. At port in Liverpool, he fell under the preacher of those early Methodists, like John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield. He had a conversion experience and gave up slave trading. He studied Greek and Hebrew and prepared for the ministry, becoming ordained at age 41. He became an ardent abolitionist. He wrote his own epitaph: John Newton, clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slavers in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.”

Our favorite hymn today is….Amazing Grace (sing it).

Music is powerful. It gets to our deepest core. Our friends in Bastrop need music. Cathy and I did a scouting trip out there on Saturday. Have you seen the aftermath of the wildfires? What got me was the line of dump trucks, flat bed trucks, and trailers lined up at the scrap yard with all of the burned out vehicles. The going price is $200 per vehicle. Cathy and I mostly listened to the stories. Some who lost everything. Some whose homes miraculously were spared. At lunch at the Methodist Church were church members and men living on the streets. There were clean up crews from the Methodist in Frisco, Tx, and a Spanish-speaking only family. We are going to be in partnership with First UMC, Bastrop, for the foreseeable future. They need a lot of hope. Tonya Creamer was out there a week ago, to do a benefit concert for those people. It was not to reaise money; it was to raise hope. It was for the benefit of the people, to lift their spirits. One of the songs she sang was:

And love will hold us together, make us a shelter to weather the storm,
And I’ll be my brother’s keeper, so the whole world will know that we’re not alone.

Music is powerful. That’s why as much as 40% of any worship service will be music. This music stays with us, speaking to the deepest core of our being.

Sing with me:

He’s got the whole world in His hands, He’s got the whole wide world in His hands,
He’s got the whole world in His hands, He’s got the whole world in His hands.

(show the video clip from Memory Bridge of the woman with Alzheimer’s who starts singing along with the volunteer who connects with her by singing “He’s got the whole world in His hands)

Music is powerful...keeping singing and playing.